GaYme Changer, the first book to showcase the transforming power of growing LGBT+ inclusion in the global economy, shortlisted for Business Book Awards 2022

GaYme Changer, the first book of its kind globally, is celebrating a year since its publication with three new editions in Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian coming up. The book has just been shortlisted by the UK Business Book Awards in the competitive ‘Smart Thinking’ category. The author, economist Jens Schadendorf, travelled and researched five continents to gather all his findings and the incredible stories of the LGBT+ community around the world to present them in this unique and timely book.

GaYme Changer has been a big success since it was published in spring 2021 with the first edition sold out shortly after publication. The book describes the fast rise of a new ecosystem working both locally and globally for LGBT+ equality in workplaces, communities, and markets. It argues that sustainable internal and external investment in inclusion, socially responsible business and human rights related to LGBT+ people delivers a powerful return. Always – even in times of hostility, resistance and crisis – it is economically and ethically beneficial for companies and societies and every human being, to let LGBT+ members develop into dynamic and innovative forces, rooted in new forms of cooperation, role models, working culture, and learning for ga(y)me changing results. The findings in the book are supported by more than hundred and fifty interviews and up-to-date studies.

To further address the LGBT+ community and their allies in Central and Eastern Europe, Jens Schadendorf will be publishing Slovak and Polish editions of the book in the fall of 2022 and a Hungarian edition in 2023. In these editions, he included new local stories to further highlight the struggles of the LGBT+ people in the region’s workplaces and economies.

Right from the start, the author has been invited to multiple companies, such as, for example, McKinsey, SAP, Accenture, PwC, Deutsche Bank, and Hogan Lovells, and a variety of universities and non-profits, for example, Central European University, ILGA, and Partnership of Global LGBTI Equality (connected to UN and World Economic Forum). GaYme Changer has also been supported by more than 30 endorsements, including from globally known CEOs and Professors, coming from five continents.

Jens Schadendorf is an economist, author and keynote-speaker on topics related to diversity and inclusion (D&I), primarily LGBT+ D&I, corporate social responsibility, and thought leadership. A former editor and book publishing director, he now also advises companies, scientists, and managers on book projects globally and is an independent LGBT+ diversity researcher at the Chair of Business Ethics at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.